Always Standing Steady

First The Lives

150700AAUG12: August 15, 2012. 0700. Kraków, Poland.

My wedding day did not begin with mani/pedis or a hair appointment. It began with a briefing. Much of my relationship with Ezra had been a big game of Don't Ask Just Do It. In theory, I was supposed to get clearance to date and then to marry a foreigner; however, I was not going to do either. My actual mission would send me to London to look into an underground art dealer who is said to be stealing relics from their sacred spots in Greece and Italy then selling them on the black market. I flew out of Athens around the same time Ezra flew out of Moscow. He would be going on to Versailles to be debriefed.

Halfway in between, we were forcing our pilots to stop in Poland because we had a wedding to complete. I would like to say that it was romantic; me in a white dress with a bouquet and glass slippers. That, however, would have been horribly impractical. I stepped off the plane wearing my dress uniform. There I was met by Sicily, who had appointed herself my Maid of Honor; also in her dress uniform, she pinned a white flower into my hair and handed me a single rose plucked from God knows where. We ran across the airstrip to where Ezra had landed.

Ezra and I ran together to where Nazirah had her plane sitting on the runway. Diego had brought a length of camouflage netting--the kind normally used to cover vehicles during stealth missions--that he hung between one wing and the plane's cockpit to function as our chuppah.

"My rabbi is probably rolling over in his grave right now," Ezra told me.

"Allison is going to kill me," I added.

"Let's do this thing!" Maysa had announced to get everyone moving. How she had known that we were getting married, no one knows; however, she was the one who thought to hunt down a rabbi liberal enough to put up with us and bring a wine glass for Ezra to break.

Diego had to grab us and drag us to the right spot where our imaginary aisle was going to be. Maysa then went ahead as our flower girl; instead of flowers, she dropped a steady stream of bullet casings that had accumulated in both our pockets in the weeks beforehand. Then I walked myself down the aisle. Then Ezra walked himself down the aisle--both to the steady hum of Here Comes The Bride, courtesy of our wedding guests.

While partially under our chuppah, we circled each other eight times; it was supposed to be seven but we lost count somewhere in there. At either six or seven, Ezra had whispered to me, "what are we on?"

"I got six," I whispered back.

"I have seven," he replied. "Let's do one more just in case."

We circled each other one last time then entered the chuppah. Our rabbi had agreed to mash American and Jewish wedding traditions together in a way that was probably sinful in some way or another. We, however, had broken enough laws as it was to not really mind too much.

The rabbi started with the notecard that had the American part of the ceremony written on it; this was made clear by the little flag drawn on the back. "We are gathered here today to witness the Union of Ezra Khatib and Ariadne Gallen in holy matrimony." He glanced at the card that at whoever had handed it to him. Someone had written something really weird on there; to his credit, he actually read it, "mawwiage, that bwessed awangement. That dweam wiffin a dweam. And wuv, twoo wuv, will fowow you foweva so tweasure your wuv." He cleared his throat. "The bride and groom have prepared their own vows. Ms. Gallen, you start."

I probably should have felt like every other bride on her wedding day: nervous, shakily in love, overwhelmed. I faced Ezra and said the vows I have come up with that morning on the plane ride. "I promise to always help you look for your talit no matter how many times you lose it, sometimes in the same day. I promise to never take it easy on you in a race and never lie about your ability to cook. I promise to love you and treasure you no matter how limbs we lose, no matter how much distance is between us, and no matter how long it has been since we last saw each other."